‘I’ll sack him’: Bitcoin surges on Trump threat
Bitcoin has surged in value after Donald Trump promised to make a bombshell sacking on his first day in office if he is elected President.
Donald Trump, once a cryptocurrency sceptic, promised to be a “pro-bitcoin president” if elected in November and that he would sack a key figure perceived to be holding crypto back on his first day in office.
The Republican nominee made the comments at a bitcoin conference over the weekend as he sought backing from an industry irked by US regulations.
“The Biden-Harris administration’s repression of crypto and bitcoin is wrong, and it’s very bad for our country,” Mr Trump said to cheers at a conference in Tennessee.
The ex-president likened cryptocurrencies to the growth of the “steel industry of 100 years ago”, and said “Bitcoin stands for freedom, sovereignty and independence from government coercion and control.”
The cryptocurrency’s price rose by more than 3 per cent on Monday to peak at about US$69,745, the highest since June 12 when the currency changed hands at more than US$69,800.
Mr Trump said if he was in the White House, he would not allow the US government to sell its bitcoin holdings.
“This will serve in effect as the core of the strategic national bitcoin stockpile,” Trump said.
The proposal was more limited than one offered the day before by longshot third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said he would seek to build a stockpile of 4 million bitcoin.
“If we don’t embrace crypto and bitcoin technology, China will, other countries will, they’ll dominate, and we cannot let China dominate,” Mr Trump said.
“If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the USA.” Acknowledging the price of electricity as a key factor in where cryptocurrency mining operations are located, Mr Trump vowed to make US energy the cheapest “of any nation on Earth” by increasing fossil fuel production and through nuclear energy.
“We’ll be doing it in an environmentally friendly way, but we will be creating so much electricity that you’ll be saying, ‘please, please, Mr. President, we don’t want any more electricity.’”
He said on his first day in office, he would fire Gary Gensler, the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a frequent target of cryptocurrency industry outrage over his cautiously slow approach to implementing regulations.
The crowd roared with approval at the proposal, prompting Mr Trump to joke: “I didn’t know he was that unpopular.”
“Let me say it again. On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler!” he said, with the crowd erupting again.
He also targeted Vice President Kamala Harris, who is set to replace Biden atop the Democratic ticket following the 81-year-old president’s shock exit from the campaign.
“We have to fight and we have to win, and I pledge to the bitcoin community that the day I take the oath of office, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris’s anti-crypto crusade will be over, it will end, it’ll be done,” Mr Trump told the crowd.
“You’re going to be very happy with me.”
Trump, Harris hone attack lines
Also at the bitcoin conference, Trump labeled Vice President Kamala Harris a “crazy liberal,” while she vowed to prevail over his “wild lies” as both laid out presidential campaign attack lines.
After earlier addressing a bitcoin conference in Tennessee, Trump rallied supporters Saturday evening in Minnesota, seeking to make the historically Democratic midwest state into a battleground.
“This November, the American people are going to reject Kamala Harris’s crazy liberal extremism in a massive landslide,” the Republican told the crowd assembled in a hockey arena.
He quickly took aim at several positions Ms Harris took during her 2020 Democratic primary campaign, some of which she has since walked back, such as a desire to ban fracking or majorly overhaul the criminal justice system.
Calling Ms Harris a “radical left lunatic,” Mr Trump also hammered her and President Joe Biden’s record on illegal immigration, inflation and crime -- all of which saw significant spikes during their term but have returned to historical averages in recent months.
In his 90-minute speech, the populist billionaire also repeated pledges to “have the largest deportation effort” in US history and end taxation of tips, while repeating unfounded allegations that his 2020 election loss had been “rigged.”
Meanwhile, Ms Harris on Saturday held a fundraising event in Massachusetts with celebrity guests including singer-songwriter James Taylor and cellist Yoyo Ma.
“We are the underdogs in this race, but this is a people-powered campaign,” she told the crowd at the event, which her campaign said would net US$1.4 million.
“Donald Trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record. And some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it’s just plain weird,” she said.
The Harris campaign has adopted “weird” as a new catch-all for describing Trump’s aggressive rhetoric.
His attacks, repeated on Saturday, include allegations that Harris wants to legalize killing newborn babies — a falsehood stemming from the vice president’s fervent support of abortion rights.
Harris has made her advocacy on the issue central to her campaign against Mr Trump, whose three conservative nominees to the Supreme Court helped overturn the national right to the procedure in 2022.
Mr Trump on Saturday thanked all six conservative justices by name “for the wisdom and courage they showed on this long-term, very contentious issue.”
Ms Harris, a former California prosecutor, also challenged Trump to a debate, after his campaign said this week he would not agree to keeping a September 10 televised face-off previously scheduled with Biden.
“I hope he reconsiders because we have a lot to talk about,” she said.
‘Mined, minted, made’
Mr Trump, 78, is now the oldest major-party nominee in history and is scrambling to reorient an election against someone two decades his junior, having expected to face an 81-year-old incumbent Biden beset by concerns over infirmity.
He vowed a return to outdoor rallies two weeks after being wounded in an attempted assassination at a campaign event in Pennsylvania.
He has made the shooting a key part of his campaign pitch, telling supporters he “took a bullet for democracy.”
Ms Harris, seeking to become the first female president in US history, is tasked with rapidly assembling a campaign against an opponent who has been in near permanent re-election mode since he became president in 2016.
Her late-starting White House bid has enjoyed early momentum. Polls that had shown Mr Biden steadily slipping against Mr Trump now show Ms Harris in a practical tie.
She’s garnered support from Democratic heavyweights, including Mr Biden himself and most recently Barack and Michelle Obama.
Torianna Parrish, 34, was among the crowd greeting Harris upon her arrival Saturday afternoon at the airport in Westfield, Massachusetts.
“I wanted to show there’s power in numbers. I wanted to show my support,” she said.
“We’re rooting for her and we want to see her make this country what it needs to be.”
— with AFP
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